Robot 6

Food or Comics | More on the new Diamond threshold and the economy

• At the Forbidden Planet International blog, Richard Bruton provides some perspective regarding the impact of the new Diamond threshold: “… Where it would really impact is the new publisher or the never broken out big publisher. I’d imagine that the amazing, long running successes of books like Bone, Strangers In Paradise, Mouse Guard and many more would be impossible under this situation. I have no idea what initial numbers were, but I’d be willing to bet they’d have trouble making the threshold. These books all generated readers and numbers through word of mouth, eventually becoming best-sellers. But these Diamond numbers effectively stop any possibility of a slow burn success. And of course, less publishers is a bad thing. Less variety means less potential interest from new readers. Which means a shrinking customer base. And that’s always bad news.”

• Blogger Johanna Draper Carlson examines a largely overlooked aspect of Diamond’s new minimum-order policy: a 60-day time limit for reordering magazines and comic periodicals. She wonders what the change will mean to magazine publishers such as TwoMorrows.

• Atomic Robo writer Brian Clevinger delcares that “the basic model of getting new independent comics into shops is dead” — for small publishers, at least — but asserts that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

• Hong Kong animation house Imagi, which is producing the upcoming Astro Boy and Gatchaman movies, reportedly is shutting down temporarily because of lack of funds. According to AnimeVice, studio executives hope to be closed for just one week while they secure more money.

News From Our Partners

Comments

One Comment

Recede and we shall succeed. I feel real bad for TwoMorrows, they have some real good reporting. All I can tell you is I never got their issues through Diamond properly. I always got some BS story why I did not get a missing issue from the store level to Diamond. Frustration settled in so I order from TwoMorrows directly. Let’s be honest most comic stores want to sell only Marvel/DC. Getting the odd issue from another publisher is a task for Hercules to labor over.